Apartment Choice

HO-ST of Brunswick. BOUTIQUE appeal just off Sydney Rd gives a newly- launched Brunswick project an edge over others in the suburb’s rapidly growing apartment market , according to the agent. There will be 19 apartments at HO-ST of Brunswick, which is about to spring up between the No. 19 tram and Upfield train lines and countless cafes in the hip inner northern hub. Castran Gilbert agent Sharif Islam said three apartments at the 8 Hope St location had already been snapped up since the project’s mid-August launch. “They’re all big sizes. One-bedroom starts at 61sq m internal space with a 12sq m outdoor area — so a 73sq m one-bedroom apartment,” he said. “They’re generous, big apartments — that’s why people love it.” HO-ST of Brunswick. The one-bedroom apartment provides the development’s entry price point at $459,000. At the other end of the spectrum, a three-bedroom penthouse with 125sq m internal and 24sq m external space has already sold to a doctor at the nearby hospital prec...

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...